5 Mind-Blowing Facts About Black Hole

2 years ago
54

We finally got there.
Just this week, an international team of over 200 scientists, making use of eight massive radio telescopes spread across different continents, have at last confirmed the existence of a black hole - gravity’s ultimate victory, and one of the universe’s most mysterious cosmic entities.
It’s been coming a long time. It was back in the late 1700’s that astronomers first pondered what would happen if an object had a gravitational pull so great, that not even light could escape it.
Now we know.
Some two centuries, and countless theories, later, mankind has produced the first image of one of these dark cosmic pits from which nothing can ever escape. 55 million lightyears from Earth, at the centre of the Messier 87 galaxy, lies the supermassive black hole which we can now witness for ourselves.
Black holes are perhaps the strangest result of star-death, a phenomenon which also produces neutron stars, supernovae and phenomena such as pulsars and quasars. One day, it will even happen to our own sun.
Black holes form when a dead star’s mass increases to such an extent that no outwards force can resist it, causing the star to collapse in on itself to a focus of one tiny point.
The gravitational pull of these centres of darkness increases and increases as you approach it. Beyond a specific point – known as the event horizon – nothing can ever come back. Scientists have given it this name because we can never know about any events which may occur beyond it – all becomes a mystery.
However, the strange and perilous effects of a black hole begin long before you reach the event horizon. Just approaching one of these monsters, the fabric of space and time itself begin to warp, causing many strange effects.
So what would happen if you were to visit a black hole? And what effects could they potentially have on Earth?

Loading 1 comment...